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all right…figured out the sway bar – the solution is in ‘testing’ mode so unless it fails it’s awesome

replaced the big 5/8″ bolt with a 5/8″->3/8″ sleeve and a 3/8″ bolt…the bolt is now 7″ long to give space for the spherical bearing…technically it should have been 6.5″ but the store was short (haha get it – short) on 6.5″ bolts…I used a nylon lock nut to secure it in place…the sleeve fits perfectly inside the assembly and everything was nice and tight…

as soon as I put everything back together I remembered the sway bar was actually wider than it should have been…I was pressed for time as I had to be at the track in 2 hours so I just fabbed up a quick spacer and used a 3/8″ bolt on the bottom as well…this can likely be done a little better but it works for now…

took the car to the track….holy tail happy batman people were worried about understeering I am worried about oversteering the car felt great on the track – very predictable and controllable….the back is very light and was constantly in a hurry to go first…some throttle play and everything was in check….the gearing is extremely poor for any type of racing – 2nd gear is way too high and 3rd gear is way too low…basically I needed something right between 2nd and 3rd the whole time….not much fun in the straights either but I’m hoping the new engine will change all that

Got a few parts sandblasted…the idea was to blast the wheels clean but the shop I took them to told me they can’t do it…definitely using a different shop next time…

Here are the intake manifold and head cover when i took them off the car:

And here they are back from the shop…still contemplating whether to do a wrinkle finish or powder coat them…

Also picked the engine up from the machine shop – the cylinders are bored to JE specs, the pistons, rods and crank are spin balanced, the crank is polished…ahhh everything is squeeky clean…

Had to do a lot of hand scrubbing because of the poor sand blasting experience…the result is really not that bad for my first try…

Also spent a couple of minutes securing the VW R32 bumper to the car…It’s not a 100% fit but for the cost of nothing I think it will do the job…the new bumper gives me a lot of room behind to fit the intercooler and not worry about clearances…

while dealing with the head issues I decided to tackle the understeering issue…for the purpose a VW MK4 (FWD Jetta or Golf) rear sway bar (Neuspeed 28mm) was test fitted at the back of the 1993 Audi 80

before:

The installed sway bar looks like this:

As you can see here the rear sub-frame is identical on these two cars…chances are the same setup is used on a few other FWD VWs and Audis


the brackets fit like a glove…I still need to figure out the shock attachment points though…there’s a little issue with those…here you can see the MK4 bolt (small) and 80 bolt (large)

the way larger 80 bolt means I can’t use the current rod end bearings so I have to figure out a little fix…the problem is the sway bar end is a rather small diameter compared to the shock bolt end…here you can see the rear (small) vs. front (large) rod end bearings for the Neuspeed sway bars…I have an insert that allows me to use a smaller bolt with the front rod end but the 80 bolt is still too big…gotta visit the local bolt shop…

and here’s the fit with and without a shock…

and started cleaning my OEM Speedlines…The lips are in a pretty rough shape so the idea is to clean everything off and repaint them white…it’s a rather lengthy process but I think it will be worth it in the end…

The wheels before the work was done…